Dear Tumblr

Now Tumblr, In a lot of ways, you're a nice service. You provide a good way to share short, quick things, and easily like and re-share things that others have shared. You're not set up great for long, in-depth posts, so there are definitely certain kinds of blogs that shouldn't be hosted by you. That's fine, you're trying to provide service more for blogs that are tons of quick things, many people posting dozens of times a day.

The problem is, you're also lacking a lot of things. Now, I understand that most people follow a bunch of Tumblr's and their dashboard is filled a crazy amount of posts, and generally there's more content then they could realistically look at. So you're set up in a way with most recent stuff at the top. But here's the thing, if I follow someone, then that means I want to actually see everything they post. There is no good way to do that. I have to just scroll down until I recognize old posts that I've already looked at. You need a way to mark where I "left off" last time I was there. And ideally, I'd like to be able to start with the old stuff and work my way to more recent stuff, so I can see things in the proper order that they were posted in. I know this isn't a problem for everyone, but you should really have some sort of option to at least mark where I left off.

That's not the worst part though. When people post things, in any context, other people are going to have things to say about it. You can't have a site centered around sharing things, and not allow commenting. You really need to include a way for people to comment on all posts. That's the main reason I left you, I just couldn't stand not being able to comment on things. It's such a basic and important feature for... well pretty much everything on the internet.

Add the ability to comment, and maybe I'll come back.
-SF

Dear Windows

So, I heard you're getting a new logo for Windows 8. Now, I understand that you've been making adjustments to your logo with each new version of Windows. Generally this has been fine, making it smoother, shinier, adding colors. It's been advancing with the operating system, and this is fine. However this new logo is... horrible.

It's a massive downgrade. You took away the color scheme that we're all used to seeing. I understand straightening out the edges, after all it is supposed to be a Window and lately it has looked more like a flag.  I know Windows 8 is creating some big changes... but this icon is so different it doesn't even feel like Windows anymore.

People like consistency, I don't see how this is a good idea.
-SF

Dear Fellow Students

You always make this same stupid mistake. We were supposed to have a test next week, but of course you didn't want to take a test. So when given the option of moving it until after vacation, you demanded that it indeed be moved instead of just leaving it when it was scheduled for. In theory, this has it's benefits, and I'm sure a small portion of you will actually get extra studying in over vacation and do better than you would have if it was next week.

But what about the rest of you? I know exactly what's going to happen. You're going to happily not study now, because the test is now so far into the future. Then, when we get back to school after vacation, you'll scramble to study in the day or two before the test, studying no more than you would have before vacation if the test hadn't been moved. The result will be that you didn't get in any extra studying, and by postponing it three weeks you've now had time to forget things from when you learned them, so if anything you'll do worse. Postponing a test a couple days can be helpful, postponing it till after a two week vacation is not. Either way, I plan on acing this test anyways.

Enjoy worrying about the test all vacation when you could be relaxing.
-SF

Dear Avenue Q

You are one of the most hilarious things I have seen in a long time. Everyone, including me, could use a good laugh every now and than, and you gave me a couple good solid hours of laughter. You were funny in all sorts of ways, social commentary, silly songs, quirky characters... just generally amazing. And all your songs were were well written and catchy.

But the best part was how you weren't just funny. You also had a legitimate story going, and once we had time to care about the characters and were confident everything would continue being hilarious, BAM you throw some sad emotions in our face. Hooking into your audiences emotions like that is a great way to stick in their minds as something a lot more than just a funny show.

Thanks for being so awesome, I just might go buy your soundtrack.

-SF

Dear Internet

Hello there internet, thought I'd talk directly to all you wonderful people that are reading this. I've updated the site a bit, adding an archive section where you can get to the letters by category, in addition to the chronologically ordered tree on the right side of every page. I couldn't figure out how to make that tree only appear on the archive page, so for now it will remain a static a part of the whole site as it was before.

What are your thoughts on this? Is organizing them categorically a good idea? Should I further sub-divide some categories? Are there new categories I should create and start writing letters in? Are there categories that are consistently rather boring and I should stop using? Is it silly to have a whole category for dreams when so far I've had only a single dream that I both remembered the next day and was even remotely interesting enough to talk about?

Let me hear your thoughts!
-SF